In 1991, Taiwan’s $2.8 billion buy of 6 Kang Ding Class multi-role stealth frigates from France, purchased the navy’s current high-end surface combatants. These ships are derivative of the Lafayette Class, which has been used as the base platform for several nations’ frigate designs – but they have critical weaknesses due to technologies not transferred to Taiwan.

That’s not the only weakness associated with this purchase. A major bribery scandal involving hundreds of millions of dollars has percolated for several years – and is also associated with a murder. It’s now associated with a demands for around $950 million in fines, most of which is already owed by Thales and the French state under international court rulings. The rest is tied up in a 2nd lawsuit, against DCNS.

The long-range C-17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft remains the backbone of US Air Mobility Command inter-theater transport around the world, and its ability to operate from shorter and rougher runways has made it especially useful during the Global War on Terror. Recent buys by Australia, Britain, and Canada have broadened the plane’s its global use. Now NATO, who has relied on the SALIS arrangement and its leased super-giant AN-124s from Russia, is looking to buy and own 3 C-17s as NATO pooled assets with multinational crews. Participating countries will receive allocated flight hours relative to their participation, and thus far they include 12 nations: Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United States.

This order will not materially change the coming shut-down of C-17 production, but it does look like the inauguration of a pool that will fill a gaping hole in Europe’s defense capabilities – its complete lack of heavy airlift. This article covers NATO C-17 acquisition program, including its structure and ongoing announcements.

The program now has an adequate name, as NATO SAC has signed a contract, all 3 aircraft have been delivered, and SAC C-17s have been busy on missions for a couple of years now.

The FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry Class of frigates successfully achieved the goal of fielding a lower-cost warship to bulk up numbers during the Cold War, and proved their ability to take a punch when the USS Stark survived an Iraqi Exocet missile strike in 1987. The flip side of that success was very little internal room to spare, and a design whose systems have proven prohibitively costly and difficult to upgrade. The USA has been providing these frigates to allies at low to no cost, rather than spend the money required, and has removed the advanced weapons on remaining American ships of class.

Poland was one of the recipients, and their 2 frigates retain the front pop-up launcher for SM-1 anti-air and RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. These are the Marynarka Wojenna Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej’s largest combat ships. Their equipment standard is adequate in the narrow Baltic Sea, where they are supplemented by Fast Attack Craft hosting more advanced RBS-15 missiles, and by even more advanced NSM missiles mounted in coastal shore batteries. The ex-FFG-7s also serve well enough for wider deployments with allies. Poland is now looking for more service life extension work, as well as upgrades, but those upgrades will stop well short of Australia’s difficult and costly “Adelaide Class” refit.

3 pro-Russian insurgents were killed and 13 were wounded while they attacked a military base in Mariupol, a coastal town in southeastern Ukraine. WSJ | Ukrainian Ministry of Interior [in Ukrainian].

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a press conference that he was ready to (officially and reluctantly) send troops to Eastern Ukraine if what he considers as the illegitimate government in Kiev continues its so far fumbling attempts to counter pro-Russian rebels with force. Putin brushes off talks of covert Russian meddling in Ukraine as “nonsense.” Financial Times | Video of press conference.